Trump’s EPA is preparing to officially refute the long-accepted science that greenhouse gases are threatening the future of the human race.
With all the hullabaloo over the Jeffrey Epstein scandal and Trump’s renewed efforts to paint President Obama as a treasonous bastard facing imprisonment and worse, it’s understandable that you might miss the following headline:
From The New York Times:
EPA Is Said to Draft a Plan to End Its Ability to Fight Climate Change
Let’s break down this scary story, shall we?
The Trump administration is preparing to repeal the EPA’s 2009 “endangerment finding,” a key scientific declaration that grants the U.S. government authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.
What is the “endangerment finding?”
This foundational finding reveals that pollutants such as carbon dioxide and methane pose a significant threat to human health and the environment.
And if it’s removed?
Eliminating it would dismantle the legal basis for federal climate regulations on vehicles, power plants, and industries—effectively gutting existing rules and blocking future efforts to combat climate change.
The draft rule, expected in the coming days, also seeks to roll back limits on tailpipe emissions intended to boost the production of electric vehicles.
Trump officials argue such regulations harm consumers by raising prices and restricting choice. Critics argue that the administration is disregarding established science and eroding legal precedent, including the 2007 Supreme Court decision that recognized greenhouse gases as pollutants under the Clean Air Act.
That seems bad for the environment and all life on this planet. Is it?
Oh yeah. Very much so.
However, much of the damage has already been done by his administration.
Since returning to office, Trump has taken decades of climate protection efforts implemented by Democrats and Republicans alike to the proverbial woodshed and thrown his support behind old-school energy sources like coal, an industry that has been dying for decades as other forms of energy, such as natural gas, solar, and wind, take its place.
It’s certainly worrisome that Trump appears hellbent on dragging America back to a time when coal plants and tailpipe emissions (another regulation he’s suffocating) filled our skies with noxious fumes.
[I have a theory that Trump is obsessed with returning America to its pre-climate concern era because it reminds him of his youth and the last time he could look down in the shower and see his…]
It’s also problematic because the renewable energy industry is a vibrant and profitable one that also happens to serve our future interests.
This near-magical combination rarely occurs in government or life.
Wind and solar farms are a large part of the landscape and economy in Postindustrial America. They are helping to lessen our dependency on fossil fuels at a time when our energy needs are spiking, in part due to our growing reliance on AI, which requires significantly more juice than our parents’ internet did, i.e., three years ago.
And with new industries come new jobs, good-paying jobs that don’t require workers to inhale coal dust, resulting in terminal illnesses, as reported in this excellent Postindustrial story: How miners are still paying the costs of pursuing an “American Dream”(a must-read!).
That Trump’s EPA seeks to undo both the climate and economic benefits of such a switch from the noxious fumes and pollution of old to energies aimed at protecting the planet and ourselves should not be overlooked, even a time when underage sex scandals and threats of imprisoning presidential predecessors gobble up most of the headlines and space in our fractured, overtaxed brains.
Because long after the Epstein issue is forgotten, and it will be eventually, as well as the Obama arrest AI memes, the planet will remain in peril and those left dealing with the worsening climate crisis won’t forgive our refusal to stand up to this president’s destruction of the ways we could have saved future generations from environmental catastrophe.
